The incredible Grace Jones turned 76 one month ago today. Did you know that in 1968 she worked in Philadelphia as a go-go dancer under the name Grace Mendoza? Imagine happening upon her then! And while modeling in Paris in the 1970s, Jones roomed with Jerry Hall and Jessica Lange. There's lots more you can learn about Grace Jones right here.
Charles Magnante was an American piano-accordionist, arranger, composer, author, and educator who first began performing with his amateur musician father, singing at weddings and dances, at the young age of five. By the time he was seven, he had learned to play his father's accordion, and, fewer than ten years later, he was being offered opportunities to play with various orchestras...opportunities he turned down at the time in order to focus on his studies.
By the 1940s, Charles was leading a successful trio that also featured George Wright at the organ and Tony Mottola on guitar. (Mottola and his guitar are also featured on the recordings collected for this LP.) Magnante worked to expand the types of music that featured the accordion beyond the stereotypical Italian-American "O Sole Mio" image that audiences of the era always expected to hear. The "bright and sparkling new sounds" featured on this 1961 "Percussion Italiano" LP do, indeed, seem to break free of that old tradition.
All the information above about Charles Magnante—and more—can be found at Wikipedia here. Did you know accordionist Charles Magnante was also an avid big game hunter? He wrote articles detailing his hunting expeditions that were published in hunting magazines!
When I was in junior high, my friend Denny Kibbe and I were always excited when we got to visit Tower Records in Seattle. We usually had a hard time finding the place, but once we did we would spend hours inside, just digging through all of their 7" singles. Here's one that I picked up back then, in 1984. Having never heard of I Am Siam, I selected it solely because of its cover.
Even now there's not much information about the band online. Their bio on LastFM tells us what we already know, and provides no information about the group:
With the New Wave scene so active in the mid-eighties, many one-hit-wonders appeared on the charts for a brief, one-time stab at the big time. I Am Siam was one of those. Their record "Talk to Me" received only limited club and radio play, and the band faded from the scene as quickly as they appeared.
I should note that other online sources indicate I Am Siam was a trio based in NYC.
Here's another one of the singles I was forced to purchase with my recent Discogs order from Europe so that my total order cost would be worthy of overseas shipping. According to Wikipedia, Snoopy was a short-lived Dutch disco duo formed in 1978, featuring Ethel Mezas and Florence Woerdings...until Florence left in 1979 and was replaced by Maureen Seedorf. In any case, Snoopy "ceased activities" in 1980, just two years after they had formed. "It's All In the Bible" was released in 1979, so one of those lovely ladies on the cover could still be Florence, or instead she might actually be Maureen. In any case, this song was a top-10 hit in both Belgium (peaked at no. 9) and The Netherlands (no. 10).
I found a copy of this 1963 Sons of the Pioneers record at The Shady Lady antique store in Centralia over the weekend. It ended up being one I already had on my shelves...but this copy is mono, rather than stereo, and it also doesn't have the previous owner's name streaked across the top of the cover in permanent black ink...so I've unintentionally upgraded my collection!
I know it probably seems like I'd think this about all of the songs on this record, but I can't help feeling that "Lord, You Made the Cowboy Happy" would make an excellent soundtrack to a homoerotic soft-core Western-themed short film. And to anyone who would accuse me of not honoring "Reverence in the Western Tradition," I have just two words: Brokeback Mountain. I bet there are lots of lesser-known Western Traditions these lonely, rugged cowboys engaged in that didn't make it into the final cuts of all those John Ford Western films.
I just returned from a fun weekend in Centralia with friends who will be moving away to Wisconsin next month. On our way back to Seattle, we stopped at the GoodWill thrift store in Olympia, where I found, amongst the myriad Ray Conniff and Engelbert Humperdinck LPs, this uncommon-in-these-parts 1977 collection of hits by South Korean "trot" singer Na Hoon-a.
Hoon-a released his first record back in 1966, and, according to this piece in The Korea Times, the handsome and debonaire singer will be retiring after a few final concerts later this year! I'd love to find out how his record ended up in Olympia's GoodWill bins; there's only one copy available on Discogs, and it's in Germany. Some interesting Na Hoon-a trivia can be found on Wikipedia...in 2008 he threatened to expose himself on live television to end rumors once and for all that he had been castrated by Japanese gangsters!
Thanks to the miracle of Google Translate, the English-language lyrics to the songs posted above are included below. It's incredible how it seems I could have written "Love In a Dream" myself in the summer of 1986, when I was smitten by Shawn Bagley. We met at the church dance while he was visiting his cousins in Yakima for the season from Belleville, Illinois!
I was digging through my disco LPs last night and found this 1979 gay disco record I'd picked up for a couple bucks at Angry Mom Records in Ithaca, NY on my Upstate New York road trip back in the autumn of 2016. According to their Discogs page, Gotham was a cabaret trio formed in 1973 that was known for their comedy as much as for their singing. They became "enormously successful" in the 1970s and '80s and were the first openly gay act to play both Washington, DC's Kennedy Center (in 1976) and (in 1978) New York City's Carnegie Hall.
Frankly, this record isn't very good. But I do like all the harp in this "Menage A Trois" song...and the fact that the song plays like "Sesame Street" for adults. "One, and Two, and Three...You, and Me, and She!" There are some great backing vocals on the LP, including some by Phyllis Hyman and Ullanda McCullough. I also like that Gary Herb looks like Eddie Rabbitt in the artistic rendition on the back of the record, but on the front cover he looks more like Corky St. Clair.
I recently ordered the "I Have Love" single by Typhoon Saturday online so I'd have their complete set (I'd found the group's other two singles at a store in the University District years ago, but I didn't have "I Have Love!").
(Un?)fortunately, my order didn't meet the seller's minimum dollar amount required for shipping something all the way to the USA...so I had to browse through their catalog to find eight or so late-'70s and early-'80s disco and new wave singles for my collection to make it worth their while! "Afromerica" by Continent Number 6 is one of the best of the bunch I got. CN6 is described online as, "an afro-funk outfit group composed of studio session artists." (Un?)fortunately, they also released an entire LP in 1978 (the same year as this single) that includes songs with titles like "Jungle Jamboree," "Eh Yeh Oh," and "Hunky Funky Lion," so...last night I had to place an order for THAT one too!
Nancy Nova is one of my top favorite recent musical discoveries! (Nowadays, "recent" means sometime within the past twelve years.) I found two of her singles at the local record shop a while back, and then ordered all of her other singles online. "No Way" is her very first one, released in 1978.
There's not a heap of information online about Miss Nova (real name: Carol Ann Holness), but she was one of the founding members of Toto Coelo (Nancy Nova's sister remained in the band!), and she wrote songs and sang background vocals for Lena Zavaroni!
I grew up watching the '60s and '70s James Bond films on TV. Even when I was a kiddo I loved the films' theme songs and the sensual opening credits sequences. Roland Shaw must have loved them too, since he was rather prolific when it came to releasing James Bond movie music records in the 1960s and early '70s. I picked up this two-LP collection a few years ago at Daybreak Records (according to the price sticker anyway; my memory is shot) but until this evening I hadn't opened the album (or had I?) to reveal, not only its full gate-fold centerpiece glory, but also a signed head-shot of Sean Connery somebody stuck inside my copy! (You know, the marketing team might have put one of these in every copy of this record when it came out back in 1971. Who knows.) (But still...)
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER is notable for marking Connery's return to the screen as British Secret Agent 007 after model George Lazenby took on the role for ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, released in 1969. I think most 007 aficionados would agree that DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER has one of the most riveting theme songs of any in the Bond franchise (sung, of course, by the legendary Shirley Bassey...it also happens to be one of my own karaoke greatest hits!) Likewise, I don't think anyone could argue over the fact that the film has one of the most dynamite 007 posters of any ever made. And though DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER is certainly of interest for featuring an early appearance in cinema of a gay male couple (as a pair of villains...played mostly for laughs, unfortunately and of course), I'm fairly certain Bond fans and critics alike would solemnly nod in agreement when I say... This film stinks.
